A Ministry of Defense Spokesman (MOD) confirmed on Saturday that
"Royal Air Force Tornados continue to fly over Iraq and are
now ready to be used in an attack role as and when appropriate
targets are identified."

On Friday, MPs in Britain's House of Commons voted overwhelmingly
to take part in military action against Islamic State (also known
ISIS, or ISIL).

The motion proposed by Prime Minister David Cameron's government
was passed overwhelmingly by 524 votes to 43 – a majority of 481.

Britain’s three biggest parties, coalition government partners
the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, plus the opposition
Labour party, all officially backed the bombing campaign. The
government insisted the intervention was legal under
international law because it was requested by the Iraqi prime
minister.

The measure did not propose any UK involvement in airstrikes in
Syria, where a US-Arab coalition began bombing IS militants on
Tuesday. A year ago, British MPs rejected airstrikes on Syria to
oppose the government of President Bashar Assad.

Cameron told MPs early in Friday's debate the situation in Syria
is “more complicated” than Iraq because of its
"brutal dictator" President Assad, and the civil war
that has been ongoing there for the past three years.

He noted, however, that there was a strong case for attacking IS
in Syria, a proposition which both Foreign Secretary Philip
Hammond and Defense Secretary Michael Fallon have cited as a
distinct possibility.

Cameron added that there was no “legal barrier” to
expanding operations into Syria, though MPs were far from united
on such a move.

Shadow Education Minister Rushanara Ali resigned from Labour's front bench on
Friday in order to abstain from voting on the measure.

“I am not confident that this military action will be
effective in the short term in just targeting the terrorists and
not harming innocent civilians,” she wrote in a letter to
Labour party leader Ed Miliband. “Nor can I pretend to have
any confidence that there is a credible long-term strategy to
build up the capacity of the Iraqi army or that the potential
impact on radicalization in the UK has been properly thought
through.”

She added that while a majority of British Muslims abhorred the
actions of IS, there is a widespread belief in both Muslim and
non-Muslim communities that military action "will only create
further bloodshed and further pain for the people of Iraq.”

Public opinion, however, has turned decidedly in favor of
military action following the
beheading of British aid worker David Haines.

A poll conducted for The Sun newspaper, published on Friday,
showed that 57 percent of UK residents surveyed said they
supported bombing ISIS in Iraq, compared to 24 percent who were
against the move.

Support for a bombing campaign is up by one-fifth on a similar
poll last month.

Meanwhile, activists from the UK-based Syrian Observatory for
Human Rights said that US-led forces had launched airstrikes
against Islamic State compounds in the central province of Homs
and the northern region of Raqqa on Saturday, AP reports.

The targets included wheat silos west of the eastern city of Deir
el-Zour.

On Friday, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said that the
Pentagon had already launched 43 airstrikes in Syria. According
to the US government, more than 40 nations — including Syria’s
Middle East neighbors of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi
Arabia, Bahrain and Jordan — have so far pledged support to the
anti-IS campaign.

On Friday, Denmark pledged to send seven F-16 fighter jets to
Iraq to aid in the struggle against Islamic State militants.
Earlier in the week, the Netherlands and Belgium each promised to
contributed six fighter jets apiece.

Washington and its allies hope to contain and ultimately destroy
the extremist group, which has established a self-declared state
in an area roughly one-third the size of Syria and neighboring
Iraq combined.

The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin
Dempsey, however, said that airstrikes alone would not be enough
to eliminate the threat posed by IS militants. Although the
Pentagon has been unwilling to commit ground troops to the
region, Dempsey said Friday that up to 15,000 moderate Syrian
rebels would been needed to dislodge IS militants from northern
and eastern Syria.

Comments from the top US military official came one week after
Congress approved a plan to begin training
and equipping 5,000 moderate Syrian rebels to counter the IS
threat.